Daughter of the Tarot
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley August 22, 2025
Author Claire Marchant
Distributor: Amazon UK
ISBN: 978-1836030577
Publisher: Blodwood Books
Release Date: 18 August 2025
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2025 sees Beatrice still grieving the loss of her mother, the selling of the family home and her father’s new life with another woman beginning. She makes the decision to move to London, leaving all she loved about life in Nottingham behind her.
She has found the perfect place to set a small shop selling Tarot Cards, reading Tarot cards and making a new life for herself. Her mother was a Tarot reader, as was her grandmother and great grandmother, Bea being taught at a young age by her mother to learn the cards, the secrets held within and how to interpret their messages.
Bea is left a very old set of cards with one missing, the Devil Card and one with what appears to be dried blood stains. She decides that she should try to find out more about this set of cards that date back to the 16th century which sets off a series of events that help her understand better the real meaning in the Tarot’s messages for her.
Portia is a woman on the run; it is Milan in 1629, the Plague is everywhere, people are dying and not being buried, and she has a newborn babe to care for. The father is a Nobleman, dangerous and ruthless, a man running from the City leaving the women and new born child behind.
Leaving Milan undiscovered, eventually finding safety in England, she raises her daughter, conducting Tarot readings for those who come asking, leading a dangerous double life helping women escape brutal and violent marriages.
Both these stories come together in a captivating tale of love, life, fate and understanding in Daughter of the Tarot as Bea learns that life is not always about certainties, that when one journey ends another new one is just beginning.
Claire Marchant was inspired to write a slightly different historic fiction as her sixth novel based on her love of Tarot cards. Portia evolved as a mysterious Italian woman living in London, a woman of secrets and knowledge, Her modern-day Portia had to be another strong woman, but one who needed to learn from the past.
Together these women make a page turner of a book which is very difficult to put down.